BANDITS entered the St Benedict’s Roman Catholic Church in La Romaine in the early hours on Monday and ambushed the priest, Father Derek Anton, while he slept in his quarters.

The five masked men grabbed the church’s collection money that was stored in an envelope, but dropped it as they made their exit through a hole in the wire perimeter fence, police said.

In the aftermath of the incident, Father Matthew d’Hereaux, the Vicar of the Southern Vicariate and Parish Administrator for St Benedict’s Roman Catholic Church, sent a message to the bandits to turn their lives over to Jesus Christ and seek to earn an honest living.